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I would be even happier having a few tankards of the original IPA that went over to India, bet it wasn't anything like the overly hopped AIPA, I would like to think that the malt flavours would come through. Probably full of the Brett and bacterial funk too, given it spent many long moths, at...

More bread than cake, probably looked a bit like pumpernickel, and I suspect more like porridge than bread after a week or two soaking in fermenting mash - aren't we lucky that brewing had moved on (No Tim resist the urge, it wont make for better beer)! Heh I actually did make a Sumerian ale...

I wouldn't say hops are *only* for masking off flavours - definitely not. I would say this effect is generally ignored or overlooked these days. Mark, I'll keep working on the ol' herbal brews. I've had some successes and some noted failures and many in-betweens. If I get a brilliant brew I'd...

I've been herbal brewing for a few years - brewing a number of brews entirely without hops, concentrating mainly on historical brewing herbs like the Artemisias, Sage, alehoof, yarrow, etc etc etc. And giving my own brews out for tastings - and tasting other people's brews - I've come across...

Really interesting. Of course the earliest fermented beers, Sumerian ale, were just this - grain cakes thrown directly into the pot with water (for the mash) and then left there during the ferment. I assume the cakes could then be used in later beers as a starter, as they'd make a very happy...

I sometimes do a variation on this concept and use whey from cheesemaking in the mash. From that you get lactose and some other qualities - added creaminess, maybe a touch of lactic acid, maybe a few fermentable sugars in the milk (galactose, mostly), and protein. I did this late last year...

Bitter is better?

(Pedantic comments r us, sorry. :p)

Gluten free lactose! Makes you wonder - can you get a variety with gluten included?

Brew some beer without hops and dilute.

TBH both grain of paradise and long pepper sound like pretty good general cooking ingredients, so it's not as if they'd stay lying around forever :)

Hm, long pepper - never heard of it before! You should bear in mind that sometimes brew stores are the *worst* places to source brew spices (if they're not hops). I remember a few years back buying a small packet of juniper berries for a large price from a brew store, and then walking into my...

Vanilla, can't recall anything else. Vanilla was a good choice as it smoothed out all the weird 'young mead' flavours; but it faded with age.

Cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger go beautifully in beers. I'd be tempted to base a Christmas pud ale around those spices. Pretty simple, you just chuck them in during the secondary ferment and leave them for as long as you need.

Yeah I had a Christmas Cake or Christmas Pudding Ale two years ago. I can't remember the brewer. It was a dark fairly strong ale with what was described as 'fruity' and 'raisin' flavours. I can't say I liked it much; it had an odd taste that I think probably came from some kind of a...

I love the fruit mince pie too :) I'd imagine a beer would work fairly well as most of the classic fruit mince pie constituents - sultanas, raisins, currants, peel, nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg - either have flavours that complement a beer well or tend to show up in beer flavour profiles anyway...

The fertilizer grade is about $15 a 25 kg bag and the food grade about $50 would suggest a difference . Yeah maybe though to me the difference that suggests itself is market incentives - people are happier to pay a premium for stuff that they're going to eat or drink - understandably. But I...

As to magnesium oxide, I suppose why not? The ions will separate out as it dissolves in the water and you'll get magnesium to aid the mash and, well, the oxygen won't do any harm. The only qualm I'd have with using products that are not sold as food (eg Epsom Salts) is maybe there's something...

Here we go, here's a list of some of the relevant books: Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, Stephen Harrod Buhner - different perspectives from a naturalist. Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats, transcribed by Karen Hess - some very interesting old recipes for beer...

But yes, there have been duds....